


A Balcony Scene

by helsinkibaby



Category: CSI: Miami
Genre: Angst, Drinking, F/M, Het, Pre Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2004-08-05
Updated: 2004-08-05
Packaged: 2021-02-28 16:40:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,705
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23380345
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/helsinkibaby/pseuds/helsinkibaby
Summary: "I don't hate you, you know."
Relationships: Calleigh Duquesne/Tim Speedle, Tim Speedle/Original Female Character
Comments: 2
Kudos: 1





	A Balcony Scene

**Author's Note:**

> If you haven't read "The View from a Glass House", this mightn't make sense. Or if you have, it will make more sense?

“I don’t hate you, you know.”

Calleigh jumps and whirls at the new voice, pulling her wrap tighter around her. It’s not because of the cold, because this is Miami, and even in December, even standing high on the balcony of a downtown hotel, the lights of the city twinkling below her, it is still balmy enough to stand in a sleeveless, backless evening dress and not feel chilled. Nor is it for modesty’s sake, because Calleigh’s a damn good CSI and a damn smart woman, and either way, she knows when a guy is interested, when he’s checking her out and chatting her up. And if she knows one thing about the guy who’s just joined her, that’s the furthest thing from his mind. The movement comes more from instinct, the shock of being interrupted when she really just wanted a few minutes alone, being interrupted by him of all people.

She processes all this in an instant, but it takes her a second longer to process his words. When she does, she frowns, narrows her eyes at him. “What?” she asks, because while they make sense to her, a hell of a lot of sense, she never would have expected him to say them.

“You think I hate you.”

Speed takes a couple of steps towards her, and Calleigh’s arms tighten around herself as she observes his gait, recalls the dinner that they’ve just had, and the amount of free wine and champagne he’s consumed, courtesy of the local law enforcement Christmas banquet. Long experience tells her that he’s definitely a little south of sober, and it also tells her that, unlike her father, he’s not going to be a belligerent drunk, or an occasionally violent drunk. No, it seems that Tim Speedle is a maudlin, morose drunk. Which, Calleigh thinks, she really should have been able to guess.

“Why would you think that?” she asks, keeping her tone light, resting her glass on the stone balcony in front of her, turning to rest her hip against it. She does think that, and she knows that she’s right, so she’s interested to hear what he’s got to say.

He doesn’t say anything for a second, just shrugs as he studies the lights of the city. When he looks across at her again, he blinks, and it’s almost as if he’s forgotten that she’s there. “Something Megan said,” he tells her, and she looks down, her lips twisting in a rueful smile.

“Looks like I’m going to have to have a little word with Megan about the concept of girl talk,” she observes. Because really, Megan shouldn’t have repeated that comment to Speed, or to anyone, coming as it did when Calleigh, Megan and Alexx were at the bottom of their second pitcher of margaritas on a girls’ night out. Nothing that she said in that context could possibly be legally binding, right?

When she looks up again, he’s looking at her, his dark eyes narrowed, and completely from nowhere, her heart skips a beat. She’s never really thought of Tim as attractive, but tonight, between the stubble and the tux and maybe just the fact that he’s looking at her, really looking at her for the first time ever, she can’t think of him as anything else. “Why would you think that?” he asks her, and she’s momentarily alarmed before she realises that he hasn’t taking up mind-reading as a hobby, that he’s referring to his opening conversational gambit.

“Why would I think you hate me?” she asks, incredulity ringing in her voice. “Could it be the fact that I’ve been working in Miami for nearly six months and this is the longest, non-work related conversation we’ve ever had? Conversations the number of which, by the way, I can probably count on the fingers of one hand? What possible reason would I have for thinking that you don’t like me?”

He looks genuinely surprised at her answer, and truth be told, Calleigh’s quite surprised herself. She’s talkative by nature, but she’s not one to lay her heart out on the line in quite that way, certainly not with him. Evidently, while she hasn’t consumed quite as much as Speed, free alcohol has loosened her tongue too.

“I don’t,” he says, and she must look as surprised as she feels, because he hastily adds, “Not like you, I mean.” He tilts his head, looking exasperated. “I mean, I do like you.”

She chuckles without humour, rolls her eyes. “I can tell.”

There is silence for a moment, where she takes the time to once more look at the lights, look at the cars passing by, marvelling at how small they look, and when he speaks, it takes her completely by surprise. “You remind me of someone,” he says. Her head snaps around to find him still looking at the skyline, not at her, and she can’t take her eyes off him. “A girl I used to know. You’re very alike.”

She lifts an eyebrow. “I look like an old girlfriend?” she asks. “That’s why you act like that?”

He’s shaking his head before she finishes the question. “You don’t look like her,” he says, in this tone that tells her he can’t believe she even thought that. “She had curly hair… reddy-brown… and blue eyes… and she was taller than you are…”

At that, Calleigh snickers. “Who isn’t?” she asks, and at that, a miracle happens, because Tim’s lips turn up, and she’s sure she hears a little chuckle. She doesn’t think she’s ever seen him smile before. 

He doesn’t say anything for a long time, just turns his gaze back out over the balcony, and stares. His next words, in a night of surprises, are just one more. “She wasn’t my girlfriend. Though she kinda was… she should have been…” He breaks off, shakes his head. “She was special.”

Calleigh frowns, because there’s a vulnerability about him that she’s never seen before, and while she knows how to deal with surly, taciturn Speedle, this is something else. “And I remind you of her?” Her tone is gentle, but he reacts to it as if it was an attack, his head whipping around, his eyes glaring at her almost angrily.

“It’s not how you look,” he tells her. “It’s how you are…” He breaks off, shakes his head, looks away from her. “She was this ball of energy, of life… she had this way with people, of getting them to do things… of getting me to do things. She was completely fearless, never backed down from anything… no matter what happened to her, she kept on smiling…” He raises his half-full glass to his lips, downs the contents in one gulp, and when he puts it back down, the crystal impacts sharply with the stone. She half-expects it to break, holds her breath until she’s sure it won’t. 

Only then does she drag her eyes slowly from the glass to his eyes, finds him staring at her with a look of intensity that makes the hairs on the back of her neck stand up. “What happened to her?” she whispers, not really sure she wants to know. Her mouth, for some reason, is dry as the desert, and she wishes that she could down her drink as he did, but she’s unable to move.

“She died.”

The words are uttered in a ragged whisper, and at the look of pain on his face, Calleigh feels tears come to her eyes. He must see that, because he looks down, braces his hands on the balcony shoulder width apart, letting his head drop. She looks at him, finds her hand acting of its own accord, hovering over his back. She wants to touch him, to offer him comfort, but there’s some part of her that holds back, afraid that he might not appreciate such an action. So she lets her hand drop to her side, looks at him helplessly.

It seems to take a long time before he raises his head, turns tired eyes on her. “You’re very like her,” he says, straightening up, drawing a deep breath and letting it out slowly. “And it makes me think… about what could have happened… and how much I miss her. So yeah… there are times when it’s hard for me to be around you.” He takes a step closer to her, so that he’s close enough to touch her, close enough that his breath ruffles her hair. She is looking right into his eyes, and she couldn’t look away if her life depended on it. “Times when I almost want to strangle you because of it… and times when all I want to do is take you in my arms and kiss you breathless.”

She’s already breathless, and it takes a lot of effort for her to speak. “Why don’t you?” she whispers, and any further speech is impossible when he reaches outs, touches her cheek. His thumb moves up and down against her skin, sending shivers up and down her spine, and her eyes, against their will, flutter shut.

They fly open again at his next words. “Because I don’t know if I’d be kissing you… or kissing her.” He smiles, a little sadly she thinks, and drops his hand. “And that’s not fair to anyone.”

She knows he’s right, but she still feels as if she’s lost something. But she’s Calleigh Duquesne, irrepressible, and so she gives him a smile, lets him know she understands. 

“Anyway,” Speed says, stepping back, reclaiming his glass. “I don’t hate you. I just… I wanted you to know that.”

With that, he turns on his heel, heads back to the party, and Calleigh stays where she is, watching him go. He turns at the door, meets her gaze once more, and she thinks he might come back to her, but he keeps on going, rejoins the party.

Calleigh knows she should go back too, that she’s been out here long enough. Instead, she turns back towards the lights of the city, pulling her wrap tighter around her, because even though it’s Miami, she’s cold.

She knows the wrap won’t do a thing to warm her, but she tries anyway.


End file.
